The Room That Wasn't
by luz.skrywer
Summary: At the end, there lies a key to a door that never was, a door that isn't a door that leads to a room that isn't a room. The Doctor was never, is never, and will never be alone, if only he can remember to look for the key. (Prequel to The Dreamer)
1. prologue

_I do not own, nor make any income from anything Doctor Who related. I only own my plot and my original characters. _

Rose fell though the cracks and ended up with a better life, a life of love and family. He lost her, but she kept a part of him and lived the life they could have never lived. It broke his hearts and yet he was happy. He lost her, but she was safe, she was protected, she was where she was meant to be.

Amy had followed Rory and it broke his heart. He could visit the others, even if they didn't know, he watched them move on, fall in love with the world and with others, he watched them grow old, and he left blue orchids on their graves. But he could never watch his lovers who waited, his roman and his red-head were gone, torn away by time itself. His Ponds were gone, nothing and nobody had ever been truly gone before. It torn at his hearts, he had lost them, he failed to keep them safe, it was his fault.

Time was not ever something that was easily quantified in the vortex, or really ever when it came to The Doctor. It had to have been one earth-year that the T.A.R.D.I.S. drifted, weeping with her thief. He had never been lost before, only on the next adventure finding a new way to get someplace, never had he sat still for so long. The Doctor didn't sit still, he burst with the energy of a newborn galaxy, he tinkered, he imagined, he fixed things. But The Doctor was broken and utterly alone with all of existence ahead of him. She was his protector, his Sexy, and she would make sure her their remembered their secret.


	2. secrets

_I do not own, nor make any income from anything Doctor Who related. I only own my plot and my original characters._  
-

Doctor has his secrets and he keeps them closer than any of his companions. 1000 years is a very long time and yet mearly a moment in the universe. All the memories, all the love, the loss, the choices, and the secrets held in the name of The Doctor. 1000 years was nothing and everything, nobody knew that more than Him.

"Secrets," thought The Doctor, "keep the axis' aligned, worlds spinning in orbit, stars alight, and most of all secrets keep us safe from ourselves."

His name was always the first thing asked of him, the first secret, the secret that began everything. But the second, nobody asked about the second secret. To be quite frank, nobody seemed to care about secrets 2-9, skipping straight from the name game to the meaning of the universe. Nobody cares about the little things; who invented the Rubber Duck, why it rains magenta on the fifth moon of Braxis, where the Library of Alexandria relocated itself to, and nobody, nobody, every wonders about the locked door to the left of the library.

There were an infinite number of doors to explore with an infinite number of things behind them. The door in question was a door made not to be seen, a door that wasn't a door at all. It had been been locked for so long, even The Doctor had forgotten it was ever unlocked at all, let alone the contents of that very room. No matter the adventure, the damage, or even during the many regenerations over the years, there was always a door that wasn't a door just to the left of the library. It was a constant that made the T.A.R.D.I.S. hum with certainty that her Doctor only needed to remember that he was never alone, if only she could remember where, or more importantly when, he had 'misplaced' the key.

She was up to something, he could feel it tingling in the back of his mind. There was a hum that resonated just under the melancholy, a question lingering beneath the dust, it was time to move, he felt it in his soul.


	3. the impossible

_I do not own, nor make any income from anything Doctor Who related. I only own my plot and my original characters._  
-

Time and Space was once again the constant companion of The Doctor, as was all the trouble and running that came along with his reckless approach to "helping". He had his immortal team of earthly companions, had met the impossible girl, and once again he lay broken and suffering at the sight of his own demise, saved by another companion that loved her Doctor to the end of the universe. It pained her to see her thief surrounded by so much pain in so little perspective time. Yet, every second and every choice had led him here, to the place he must never go, to his end, to where he would find the key to the door that still stood just to the left, the door that wasn't a door, the door whose key didn't exist until just now, if only he could remember he was looking for it.

He had lost her, she was shattered into an endless number of pieces scattered across his life. She would always be there to watch him, to care for him from his beginning to his end. For the first time in his long life, the Doctor realized what it felt like to be cared for so much, to be utterly and suddenly left behind for his own good, hoping to see just a glimpse or glimmer of his watcher. He smiled, she wasn't lost, she wasn't gone, she was everywhere, she is the companion that always was and always will be.

He stood, surrounded by the decimation of his eventual death, the death of an era, his era. Death was always something that scared him, this place a cursed secret, a world of his failure, and it was time to leave that fear behind him. It was time to leave his fear, his darkest secret behind, the wonder and the unseen was calling him away from the darkness. Then he felt it, pressing so painfully jagged into his palm it was a wonder he hadn't noticed it before, a key, a very old key, a key from old Gallifrey, he could now feel it's age caressing his skin, calling him to find it's lock.

"A key belongs to a door, and a door has something behind it, something new, something I need to find" The Doctor smiled in the rubble of his death, the key he was never really looking for gripped in his ash coated palm, scanning the room for a door that begged to be opened.

Trenzalore was never a place he was meant to be, it was painful and ever so wrong for him to be snooping in the corners of his own demise with a key on a hunt for a door like some child playing hide and seek in a crime scene. The analogy was dark but honest if he said so himself, though he wasn't about to start thinking aloud, talking and responding to ones self was the first sign of insanity, and he may be crazy but he wasn't crazy, not yet anyways.

"There had to be a door someplace, a key doesn't exist without a door, and nothing suddenly becomes found unless it wants to be found. That was some number in the long list of universe rules he had stashed in some closest someplace, never once had he found something that wasn't wanting to, or needing to, be found." The Doctor thought to himself while peeking around yet another half melted corner into yet another endless hallway. "You know, musing about your own grave probably wasn't the best signs of sanity, a conversation is a conversation where or not you vocalize it or not" Also, internal dialogs are rather distracting as a whole when the whole point was to be looking for something. Hence why The Doctor suddenly found himself nose to the ground, tangled in some bit of something that has sprung free from a control panel, utterly astounded that his library pool, be it the graveyard version, still contained some water.


	4. the threshold

_I do not own, nor make any income from anything Doctor Who related. I only own my plot and my original characters._

Being in this place had a deep rooted creeping sense of wrongness, but suddenly the whole universe felt like it had gone pear shaped, so wrong his brain was choking on finding a definition for the wrongness of the door he was standing in front of. It was so utterly wrong that the wrongness of being in his own tomb was nothing, the immortal Jack Harkness, and the impossible girl, all meant nothing in this moment. At this moment, this very millisecond, the wrongest thing to ever be was this door before him, blackened and worn with age, a light shining from the cracks in it's seal, ancient and new, the most impossible thing to ever be and he had the key.

one-two-three-four

one-two-three-four

one-two-three-four

The impossible rhythm whispered through with the hazy light in the cracks in the impossible door that wasn't a door.

The key ground into it's lock, rusted by time, leaving flecks of bronze in the air where it had outgrown it's partner, the sound of tumblers thunking heavily into place as The Doctor turned it to the left. "The direction of destiny" he thought darkly as the latch clicked free and the hinges creaked under the strain of finally being let loose.

The world went black.

one-two-three-four

one-two-three-four

one-two-three-four

Slowly the world came into focus, the dark heaviness of his battlefield tomb was gone from his mind, the lightness of the vortex informing him that somehow he was back on the T.A.R.D.I.S, his living and feisty T.A.R.D.I.S., and yet, something was utterly wrong.

There was somebody standing before him, a child or maybe young teenager, dressed what appeared to be a grey pair of pajamas, genderless and neutral, a canvass for time and space to paint upon, staring at him like the world had just ended, tragic and yet enthralled.

"Hello Doctor. I've been waiting for you." The child smiled and walked closer, timidly reaching out and grabbing the older man's hand "I need you to find me" the child moved The Doctor's hand to the center of it's chest.

one-two-three-four

"it is nearly time to wake up"

His eyes snapped open with a sharp inhale, hearts racing. He was on the floor in a tangled mess of ash and wires and he had to leave now, right now. There was no door, he held no key, but his hand, it was clean of debris and shimmered with the resonance of regeneration energy. He needed to find his way to his T.A.R.D.I.S. and to the door that wasn't and was all at once.

The Doctor ran to his blue box, ignoring the pain "Always run." he almost laughed at the thought "that should be another universal universe law."

The moment is feet were aboard the doors slammed shut, he felt the lurch, and heard the whine of the emergency brake left lovingly engaged, his sexy was taking him someplace safe, someplace far from death and he knew, he just knew, towards the child.

"A shower, that is what I need, H2O and bubbles to clear my mind" and he almost sauntered all the way to the best bathroom in the place, if it wasn't for a glimmer in the corner of his vision and a whisper telling him to go left and not right at the end of the hall. And so he came upon a door that made his gut sink, black and worn, a door that was impossible, and very very open.


End file.
